Entertainment reporter

Keith Urban invited two teenage fans onto the stage and engaged with his audience.

Country music might be a way of life for those living and working above the 26th parallel, but a healthy crowd of city slickers turned out to see Keith Urban at the Perth Arena on Sunday night.

Though he sings with a southern American twang, New Zealand born and Queensland raised Urban is thoroughly Australian and knows his way around the place.

He opened the show with Love’s Poster Child (from his new album Fuse) against a video backdrop of railroads, sugar cane fields and wide open spaces tinged with ochre.

He may sing with an American twang but Keith Urban was raised in Queensland.

Next came Sweet Thing, a number one on the US country music charts, which set the scene for his first incredible guitar solo of the night, backed by an electric banjo.

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“You sound amazing out there tonight Perth, do you feel like singing?”

The crowd responded to Urban’s question with a hearty cheer as he crooned through Only You Can Love Me This Way.

“It’s been a few years but I’ve made it back to the other side of the country. It feels bloody good I tell you!” he told the crowd, before namedropping a few local suburbs and reading aloud some of the homemade signs dotted around the Arena.

Urban invited two teenage fans onto the stage and signed their poster while he bantered with a fan from Tamworth, telling him “you are so lost, mate”.

A quick change of guitar and the band launched into Long Hot Summer, Even the Stars Fall 4 U and Shame before Urban invited 24-year-old Chelsea Basham on stage to sing a duet of We Were Us.

Basham, who hails from Wongan Hills, won the Best New Talent category at the 2013 Australian Country Music Awards.

A few songs later, Urban called opening act Sheppard on stage for an impromptu rendition of Bill Withers’ 1971 hit Ain’t No Sunshine.

All the while he played up to his eager crowd, playing Days Go By and You Look Good in My Shirt perched on some empty chairs in the dress circle. Before returning to the main stage, Urban whipped out a marker, signed the guitar he was playing and handed it to a stunned young fan.

Also in the crowd were Urban’s parents who were on their first visit to Perth. He spoke about spending the day in Fremantle, giving a special mention to brewery Little Creatures, before he praised Perth’s new entertainment venue.

“Last time we were here in 2007 we played at that inflatable place,” Urban said, referring to the now-demolished Burswood Dome.

“I’m loving the Arena!”

Urban put a few rumours to rest when he confirmed that wife Nicole Kidman was not with him on tour, but dedicated Making Memories of Us to her anyway.

Living up to his Mr Nice Guy image, Urban played a few extra songs to celebrate the final stop on his Australian tour and took time to thank his band, the crew and “everyone who had travelled a long way to see us”.

In doing so, he made it that little bit easier for fans to justify saving their pennies to travel for Urban’s next trip to town.